


The JCC Files

by lilcrabcrab



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, JCC, M/M, cassette tape recordings, foreign swaggers - Freeform, they're american, thus, voice diary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-01 10:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17865905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilcrabcrab/pseuds/lilcrabcrab
Summary: Jaehyun didn’t think it should have been possibly to fall in love with nothing but a voice... but here he was.---In which Jaehyun buys a basket of cassette tapes, a (strangely attractive) man's voice comes out and plants itself in Jaehyun's mind, and things go in very unexpected directions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not putting archive warnings because it would literally spoil the whole thing, but I can tell you that it's not: sexual, self-harm, or violence. Considering this, proceed at your own risk, and as always, I hope you like it! :D

_ Transcription of Recording 01: 04/10/2015 _

_ Hi, this is Johnny Seo and welcome to my first… voice diary thing I guess. _

_ I decided to do this because maybe someone in the future might want to know about me, the mysterious Johnny Seo. _

_ [laughter. It sounds a little forced.] _

_ I’m kidding. This is just because I thought it might be fun. And uh… I don’t have much else to do right now. _

_ Anyways, I read this book today. I haven’t been able to read something properly for ages. It was called Dead Wake or something, and it was about this ship that got bombed in World War 1. I really liked it, actually. _

_ Yea, a boring history book, I’m so lame, I know. _

_ But really, it was so thrilling… I still keep thinking about all those people on that ship, and how they must have felt, you know? Maybe I’m a bit too sentimental. _

_ Haha. That’s what eomma would say about me.  _

_ Oh, that reminds me… my whole family came to visit me yesterday - even my sister. We had dinner all together and played board games and I laughed so hard that it hurt. I wish I could see them more, but now that I don’t live with them anymore, it’s so hard to… even get to the other side of the city to visit them. _

_ Oh well. I’m okay by myself. I don’t spend much time living at home anyways. _

_ [around 15 seconds of silence, with only muffled shuffling and strangely shallow breathing sounds] _

_ I guess that’s it for today then. _

_ See you… whoever you are, probably just myself, that’s a bit sad… next time! _

 

The tape stopped spinning. Jaehyun popped it out of the machine, chewing his lip thoughtfully. When he had bought some random cassette tapes at a garage sale, labelled only with the letters J.S. and dated to October the year before, he hadn’t expected to hear the ‘voice diary’ of some random man, but Jaehyun found himself oddly intrigued. 

It was a hobby of his: collecting cassette tapes, and recording songs onto blank ones. He kept a shelf of them, full of old songs and a few new ones that just sounded more interesting on the tapes. When his best friend Mark dragged him along to look at a garage sale, proposing that they might find something cool and it would be “fun anyways”, he had gone straight to the few boxes of cassette tapes on a table at the back. He had picked up this basket at random, and brought them home to listen to.

Jaehyun had sat down in front of his cassette player that night, prepared to hear an obscure song or the beginning of an old album, but instead, this low and slightly breathy voice came out.

Jaehyun rewound the tape, and played it again. Something about Johnny’s voice, and the way he talked made Jaehyun want to keep listening to him. The kind and humorous tone in his voice made it hard for Jaehyun to not like him.He sat cross legged on the floor, sifting through the other cassettes in the basket as he listened to the man speak.

When it got to the part where Johnny said he was by himself, Jaehyun paused the recording, sitting in the silence contemplatively for a while. Although Jaehyun also lived alone, he felt his heart tug a little, wishing that he could be with Johnny. He seemed lonely. A little sad. Through the cheerful talk and little stories, Jaehyun heard a heart that reached out for other people but didn’t expect to find anyone. Part of Jaehyun yearned to find him and just hold him close, be that person that dissolves the loneliness.

Absentmindedly, he wondered whether Johnny was around his age - he certainly sounded like it, or a little older, maybe - and where he lived. He had an American accent, like something from around Chicago, he guessed. Jaehyun let his mind wander, imagining what it would be like to actually meet this guy. After all, the tapes were only dated to last year. Not much would have changed since then, right?

There were a few other tapes, but Jaehyun discovered that most of them were blank, or too damaged to work properly. He wanted to go through them all, but it was getting late, anyways, so he decided to call it a day and listen again tomorrow.

\---

Jaehyun didn’t know why it happened, but when he went to class the next day, he couldn’t focus. His mind kept wandering to the tapes, and those moments of that man’s life that he heard. Johnny, his mind kept supplying, whenever he tried to focus and forget about it, think about Johnny and his laugh and his voice and the things that he says.

Halfway through the lecture, his friend Ten tapped him on the shoulder, leaning over to whisper to him.

“What are you daydreaming about, Jaehyun?”

Jaehyun dropped his pen in surprise. “U-uhm, nothing-”

Ten scoffed. “Then what’s that that you’re doodling on your notes?” he asked, pointing at the book in front of Jaehyun.

Jaehyun looked down and saw that he had, without really noticing, written Johnny’s name out all over his page. He scrambled to cover it up, but Ten had already grabbed it, holding his book just far enough away that Jaehyun couldn’t try to get it back without causing a scene.

“So…,” Ten drawled out mischievously, “Who’s Johnny? Got a new crush?”

“N-no...” Jaehyun stuttered. If it was a crush, Jaehyun would probably find it easier to explain, but the reality was that Jaehyun had no idea who Johnny even was, much less who Johnny was to him. He felt his ears turning red, and looked away. 

Ten winked at him, before having mercy and returning Jaehyun’s book to him. “You’ll tell me all about him soon enough, won’t you?” he said.

Jaehyun only nodded, feeling himself blush even more.

For the rest of the lecture, Jaehyun sat and pondered what to make of Johnny. He really hadn’t meant to get so strangely obsessed with him, and especially not so quickly, but the more he tried to focus, the more he kept thinking about him. He wondered what he looked like: he must be handsome, right? Jaehyun imagined a tall man with a kind smile and then realised he was just picturing his perfect guy.

Jaehyun didn’t think it should have been possibly to fall in love with nothing but a voice, but here he was, craving another chance to find out more about the mysterious man and his unnecessarily attractive voice. 

He was going to go through all of the tapes, he decided, and try to find more so he could listen to Johnny talk. ‘I miss you, Johnny’ Jaehyun thought as the day dragged longer, and giggled to himself, cringing at his own thoughts.

When Jaehyun finally got home, he immediately went to his cassette player, putting in a random one from the basket. Slowly, he sorted through most of them, until he one started playing properly, and he heard Johnny’s voice (now familiar, from how often he replayed it in his head) say hi.

He sat forward, captivated.

 

_ Transcription of Recording 04: 19/11/2015 _

_ Hi, and welcome to Episode Four of these recording things! It’s been a while, because I’ve been…. um... away… but I’m back! _

_ I decided to call this Johnny’s Communication Center, JCC for short. JCC. Yea. I think it sounds pretty good. _

_ [A cough. It sounds phlegmy.] _

_ Anyways, I made a new friend a few weeks ago. Online, of course, since I never get the chance to go anywhere much in real life. His name is Taeyong and he’s really nice, we talked for ages last night. He showed me pics of his girlfriend. They’re cute together. Really nice couple. _

_ It’s a shame that I’ll probably never meet a cute girl… or guy… for myself. I’ve always wanted to get married and have a nice family and all but… [sigh].... I guess I’ll never get that chance. _

_ Actually, the reason I was away was that I had to go to hospital. It was so boring there, as always, haha… I hate having to go but I have no choice. I don’t know if things are slowing down but, hopefully, I guess? The [inaudible. Breathing is rough, and he is mumbling] seems- _

_ [More coughing. It goes on for around half a minute] _

_ [silence, for a few seconds] _

_ [a soft sigh] _

_ So, anyways, what have I been doing lately? Well, hmm… since i got back, I’ve been learning about these cassette tape things. I’ve been recording these on my laptop, but I thought it would really cool to put them on tapes, so we’ll see how that goes. It gives them a kind of old timey vibe, which is pretty cool.  _

_ You know, I was thinking - if anyone found these and listened to them, they’d probably want to like, see me, right? Or something like that. _

_ So just in case, my address is 29 Clovelly Road, in Chicago. In case anyone at all needed to know that, haha. _

_ Yea. Uh… that’s that I guess. _

_ Bye, for now, then. See you next time on JCC! _

_ [giggles, which turn into wheezing] _

_ [Audio cuts of suddenly.] _

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is WAY later than I promised sowwy  
> This chapter is where a possible archive warning would come into place but I'm not putting the warning up because spoilers, therefore, Proceed At Own Risk. In my opinion it's nothing too bad, just... sad...?  
> Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this! Pleeasse comment and kudos <3 <3 <3

_-and don’t forget, if anyone is listening you can come to my fan meet at 29 Clovelly Road!_

_[Sad chuckles]_

_[Recording ends]_

It should have been a hard decision. When Jaehyun heard the man’s voice spell out an address, his first thought should not have been clearly and undeniably ‘I’m going now’, it should have been some acknowledgement of the craziness of the situation or at least some sort of internal conflict over whether it was safe in the first place.

But a lovesick mind is a reckless one, so when Jaehyun saw Mark’s message asking to hang out that day, he just told him what he was doing and where he was going, and set off without waiting for a reply.

There were four cassette tapes left that he hadn’t listened to yet, and for a while Jaehyun deliberated about what to do with them before he realised that he could bring his cassette player on the car with him. He tested out a few and discovered that only one of them worked. He paused it quickly and got into his car, typing the address into his phone.

As he started on his way, he pressed play on the recording, letting Johnny’s voice fill his mind as he drove. The date on the cassette told him that this was the latest one, and he was extra excited because of it.

_Transcription of Recording 09: 27/03/2016_

_Hi everyone, welcome to-_

_[violent coughing]_

_That wasn’t a very good start was it, sorry. So, uh, yea, welcome to today’s JCC! I’m actually not at home as I record this - I know, what a surprise - I’m… I’m in hospital._

_Honestly, I thought I was getting a bit better for a while, but I’m back again. Maybe I got a bit lazy with the exercises and treatments. It’s been pretty bad, not gonna lie, but I’m staying hopeful. I have a life out there for me to live and I’m sure I’ll be able to live it… one day._

_[soft chuckles]_

_Let’s not get too depressing here, I’ve had enough of that. I was thinking about my friends, lately - I don’t have many in real life but Taeyong added me to his group chat with all of his friends and now I’m a little less lonely online at least. Sitting here in the hospital beds I get a lot of time to just text them non-stop._

_I wonder if they’d miss me if I- [inaudible. The words are muttered]_

By then Jaehyun was approaching the street that Johnny had said, and he turned his attention away from the recording to check that he had come to the right place. It didn’t look quite right - Jaehyun had imagined a small but comfortable home in a normal looking suburb, but this place seemed almost desolate. The only houses he could see before the street curved out of view were run-down and abandoned, and to his initial relief, Jaehyun discovered that they weren’t the right numbers.

But then what? Jaehyun got ready to set off down the bend and keep looking, but he saw that Mark had texted him, and stopped to see what he had said.

Mark: Jaehyun…  
Mark: I don’t know whether I should tell you this  
Mark: but I know the place  
Mark: I think I’ve been there before  
Mark: [deleted message]  
Mark: [deleted message]  
Mark: nvm it doesn’t matter  
Mark: you’ll find out yourself  
Mark: I’m sorry  
Mark: I’m so sorry Jaehyun

Frowning, Jaehyun reread the texts. Did this mean that Mark knew Johnny? How could he have not said anything all this time?

Jaehyun: What do you mean? Is there something wrong?

Mark: I  
Mark: wait I’ll call you

A few seconds later, the screen displayed a call from Mark. Jaehyun accepted it, and, without waiting for Mark to speak, asked “What is it?”

What was it?

The thing with Mark was that he knew. He knew the address that Jaehyun was making his way to - it brought back memories from five years ago of the last time he had ever seen his sister. He couldn’t say this though, couldn’t even bring himself to utter the word that would tell Jaehyun what exactly he had gotten himself into. Instead, he merely shook his head, as if Jaehyun could hear that through the call.

“I can’t tell you… just. Don’t get hurt, okay?”

“How would I get hurt? Do you think this Johnny is dangerous? Look, he’s a good guy, I told you, you can tell from his voice… no one that would hurt me would sound anything like that… Mark I thought you’d be excited for me, I actually really like him. I really, really do, he’s not a bad person, just trust me-”

“No, Jaehyun, not like that.”

“Then what?”

Mark paused for a long time. Memories hovered at the edge of his consciousness, too close for comfort but too far for him to reach out and grasp.

“I’m sorry,” Mark said again simply, and hung up.

Sitting there in the eerie silence and thinking about what Mark had said, the words being spoken in the recording, still playing in the background, make their way into Jaehyun’s notice again, and he cursed himself for forgetting to pause the recording.

_Honestly, there’s something really important in my life that I’ve never talked about here on JCC. I guess I had always wanted to keep these recordings as something that didn’t deal with that sad stuff._

_But it’s time to do so now. It really, definitely is. I don’t know if I’ll get another chance - I don’t think…_

_[a short but dangerous silence]_

_I don’t think. Yea._

_Basically, I uh, have a disease. It’s a genetic condition that I’ve always had since I was a child and uh..._

_Shit this is weird to say, I doubt anyone will care anyways. I’ll be gone and these tapes will rot away and not even my family will know-_

_I’ll just rant then._

_Ever since I was a child I’ve always had asthma, and breathing problems, and all that stuff, and now it’s even worse. It’s a chronic thing so I’m never going to recover, never going to know what it’s like to breath and feel like I can breathe enough to live…_

_It hurts. It really, really, hurts._

_The condition is called cystic fibrosis and that makes it sound clinical and serious but in the end it’s just a cage. It’s just this one part of who I am that means I can’t-_

There were no houses around the bend. Instead there was a tall and dark fence, obscuring something that Jaehyun hardly registered in his confusion. Doubts crept into his mind, and he started to see the folly of his actions. How could he have believed that this would work out? Even if there had been a house who said that it would be the right one, or Johnny would be there, or that Johnny lived there?

He saw some posts that seemed to indicate a gate, and approached them. The number on it was 29: the number that Johnny had given in the recording.

This… this was the address.

But how? Jaehyun picked up his cassette player and got out of the car slowly, walking up to the gate. A sign above the number read “White Hill Memorial Park,” and the idea that this was a cemetery set into him.

But. How?

There had to have been a mistake. He had heard the address wrong, or maybe there was another Clovelly Road somewhere in America, or Johnny had said the wrong number. As if to prove that nothing made sense, he aimed a punch at the gate in spite.

It swung open creakily. Rows of headstones arrayed themselves before him, and somewhere in the back of Jaehyun’s mind, a terrible, implausible, crazy idea rooted itself and refused to leave.

He had to check.

Jaehyun walked through the gate softly and cautiously, as if he wasn’t supposed to be there. The rows of headstones were each unique, yet as Jaehyun started to read each one, looking for a name that he couldn’t bear to utter in relation to the situation, they all seemed to blur together. By his side, the cassette player continued to play the recording, and his attention switched between Johnny’s words and the silent chant in his subconscious, looking for his name and hoping to never find it.

_So I’m in hospital now. As always. A week or so ago I had an asthmatic attack so bad that I had to be hospitalised immediately, and I was unconscious for what… three days? It was bad._

_It’s as bad as it’s ever been._

_I think… I think I had hope. Even after I was first hospitalised I had hope that I would recover like I had all those other times and I could go back home and record more voice diaries and talk to my online friends and pretend and hope that I could have a normal life._

_I’m not sure when I lost that._

Jaehyun was running now, eyes sweeping over the older graves that couldn’t match the time frame. The furthest row of graves looked to be newer, and he ignored all the others to run over. It wasn’t that he wanted to see it earlier - he just had a desperate need to know the truth and no amount of desire for the hope that comes with ignorance could overcome it.

_There were surgeries. I just finished one this morning, in fact. All the phlegm got taken out - that’s why I’m not really coughing right now - and I feel almost good except that I know this is the opposite of long term._

_I can’t help but think that my life itself is the opposite of long term._

When Jaehyun reached that last row, he found he couldn’t go any further, couldn’t bring himself to read the names. Slowly, he closed his eyes then opened them again, taking a deep breath as he heard Johnny’s voice continue. It’s breaking now, not in the usual sickness caused way, but in the way of a voice that has sharp dangerous tears in it that it’s keeping there for fear of letting them out.

_To tell the truth, I know when it all ends. The doctors have given me a time frame, and they’ve told me it’s relatively accurate. I’m not likely to survive for more than a week from now._

The first headstone read “Samantha Hatcher”, and emboldened by the fact that it wasn’t the name he looks for, Jaehyun went on to read the rest. What starts as a tentative scan of the names and years became a violent hunger to find the truth at all, and when he finally saw it he was so panicked out of breath that he collapsed to the ground before it, tears blurring his vision.

And there it was, those fateful words engraved in granite eternity.

Johnny Seo  
(1995-2016)

Faintly, Jaehyun heard the cassette tape utter two final sentences, before whirring to a stop.

_Goodbye, JCC._

_I wish I could say it’s only goodbye for a moment._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Please leave kudos and comments <3 <3 <3


End file.
